


I Hide Behind These Words (But I'm Coming Out)

by spacesbetweenseconds



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, F/F, Gender or Sex Swap, Girl niall, Hangover, Mild Smut, Online Dating, girl harry, girl liam, in the form of fantasizing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:23:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacesbetweenseconds/pseuds/spacesbetweenseconds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam hasn't kissed a girl in years, and she definitely hasn't confronted those feelings in a while. Now, after a night of drinking, she's confronted with an online dating profile whose algorithm seems to think she has eyes for women.</p><p>When circumstance leads her to get fit for a new bra with Harry, the girl from the internet who unearthed feelings Liam didn't know she could feel for someone other than Danny, she has to decide if she's ready to come to terms with who she is. Or, more appropriately, what she really wants from Harry.<br/><br/><br/>Based on the prompt: <i>Liam thinks the dating site must have fucked up somehow, because she definitely didn't check the "likes girls" option, but Harry grins so widely that she decides to give it a go anyway.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hide Behind These Words (But I'm Coming Out)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jinxfabray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxfabray/gifts).



> Written for the lovely Ani, who gave me so many wonderful prompts that it was hard to choose. However, I couldn't let my babies down, so in the end my heart told me to go with Lirry. I hope you like it, and I'm sorry it's so late!
> 
> One million thank yous go out to Eliana for being a fantastic beta and for so much hand holding along the way. Also thank you to Z for pushing me to finally get it done when I was ready to throw in the towel, to Stephanie for being the resident Lirry guru and helping me to tie together some plot points, and to V and Vee both for reading it over and telling me it didn't suck. Y'all are The Crew and I'm happy to have you as friends.
> 
> Title is from "It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love" by Fall Out Boy.

Liam hadn’t anticipated getting _quite_ this drunk.

In a moment of weakness about a half hour earlier, she had abandoned her wine cooler for one of the bigger bottles—of what, she wasn’t sure. She’d seen Louis and Zayn pass one of them back and forth before, exchanging sips like some sort of playground pre-game. She was a big girl. She could handle it.

She had reached the point where small gulps of straight alcohol did not taste as bad as she knew they should. Mid-hiccough, she passed the bottle back to Andy, where he was tinkering with her playlist. She pressed her face against her bicep, waiting until the room stopped spinning.

When she raised her head and blinked her eyes into focus, she noticed that the letters on the 99p “It’s A Girl!” banner Andy had bought her were a bit blurry. It still wasn’t too hard, though, to see where he had scratched out “girl” and had replaced it, in his awful marker-smudged scrawl, with “kidney”.

 _It’s A Kidney!_ Liam smiled to herself. 

Andy had been the first person she’d called when she heard the news of her miraculously healed organ. Well, the first person she’d called after Louis, who had yelled, “Oh, you lying little minx; I knew you had ace kidneys this whole time. Your kidneys are tops!”

Andy’s first response had been to ask if she could now have a drink…or ten. And for once in her life, instead of protesting, Liam simply steeled herself for the next morning’s nightmare and agreed. So, there they were, sat on the floor in Liam’s basement, leaning against the couch and pissed as could be. She couldn’t stop laughing.

Andy grabbed the bottle Liam had handed him, and spoke into the neck of it like he was holding a microphone. 

“Liam Payne, you’ve just discovered that both of your kidneys are magically working. What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to Disneyland! In Paris!” Imagining herself taking a picture with a Woody and Buzz who were fluent in French set off another round of giggles. This time, Andy couldn’t help but laugh with her.

“Oh ho ho, for some _French kissing_ , no doubt!” He twirled the tips of his imaginary mustache.

“Excuse me, Andy, but I think I deserve a snog from someone who isn’t Danny. The last person who… God, wow. It was ages ago. We’d just started sixth form... she’s probably married by now!” That was, after all, often the state of Wolverhampton girls once they finished college.

Andy dropped the bottle so fast. If not for the carpet, it would’ve shattered at his feet.

“…She?”

Oops. Liam had said that part out loud, then.

“Why’d you never tell me this? What was it like?” Andy was completely incredulous, his eyes glazing over with a far-away fantasy.

“It was…nice.” Truth be told, Liam had really enjoyed herself.

They’d been in the woods where the cross-country team did practice runs, and Emily had pulled her aside. Shrouded by the cover of low-hanging branches brimming with greenery, she had asked Liam if kissing another girl had ever crossed her mind. It had ( _of course it had_ ), but small towns like theirs gave way to small minds about those kinds of thoughts. She offered up a ‘ _what about you?_ ’, but Liam could see the answer in Emily’s eyes. When Liam crossed the finish line—minutes slower than usual with a flush all the way down her chest and Emily trailing behind—the coach looked at her, surprised, silently jotting down her time.

“Nice? I bought you a 99p banner from the bottom of my heart and all you can tell me about your girl-on-girl experience is that it was _nice_?”

Liam rolled her eyes, an agitated fondness creeping across her features. It would be a waste of time to chide him for his, frankly, pornographic view of her past. She knew that much. 

“It was softer than I had expected. I mean, physically, yes, like, her lips were really smooth, and plump, but also she was very gentle with me. I think she knew I needed that.”

Liam had forgotten just how nice it was. It had been so long since she’d even thought about that. Danny had asked her out less than a week later, and they’d been together since. 

“I miss kissing.” Liam felt herself pout.

“Well, you’ve been broken up for, what, a month? Two months? Maybe you should try dating again.” Andy took a swig, wiping his mouth with his forearm. “Oh! No, wait. Better idea. Maybe you should try _internet_ dating.”

Liam opened her mouth to protest, but before she could make a sound, Andy had begun to click away on her laptop. His face was illuminated in the screen’s glow, changing colors as he moved between pages. Liam watched as he filled in her basic information, laughing as he recorded her height as fourteen feet, two inches. Andy’s eyes were glued to the screen; he was a man on a mission, and Liam knew it would be useless to try and stop him. 

So, she shrugged with the irritated-but-fond attitude with which she approached most things in their friendship, and went to get herself another wine cooler. The sound of his rapid typing and occasional cackles followed her across the basement floor as she made her wobbly way toward the mini-fridge. As she fumbled around for the right flavour, she felt cool air on her flushed pink cheeks. The bottles inside shook as she shut the fridge door, triumphant.

Bottle in hand, she turned back toward Andy, only to see him laid across the couch, laughing so hard his shoulders were shaking. The typing had stopped. Their eyes met, and Liam rolled hers with a smile, amused and too drunk to argue.

\---

The first thing Liam did when she woke up was try to go back to sleep.

Well, actually, the very first thing she did was shove her face into her pillow until all she could see nothing but darkness. Between the inescapable pounding of her headache and the loud, frantic gurgling in her stomach, she was convinced she was standing on death’s doorstep. She couldn’t help but wish it would come a little bit faster.

She’d spent enough years carefully calculating her liquid intake, so the firm pressure building in her bladder was as unfamiliar as it was unwelcome. This was compounded by the fact that standing up felt like its own ordeal, and climbing the stairs would be infinitely harder. Liam was not looking forward to starting her day.

She couldn’t remember making it into a bed before she passed out last night, so she was genuinely surprised to find herself not only in one, but in what felt like her own, based on the familiar softness of her duvet. Chuffed that she no longer had to factor stairs into her bathroom commute, she braced herself for the cruel sunlight streaming in and opened one eye halfway.

This was, of course, the wrong decision.

An actual hiss left her mouth as she quickly shut her eye again, burrowing back into the pillow. The need to pee was about to get the best of her, though, and if she thought the sound of silence was bad for her aching head, she didn’t want to think about how bad the washer and dryer would sound. Besides, she was a grown-ass adult, and she was not about to wee in bed.

Liam rolled out of her bed, face still planted in the rumpled duvet as her feet hit the ground. She covered her eyes with her hand and stumbled towards to bathroom. Her other arm was held out so she could feel along the wall for direction. The light shining in her hallway was unpleasantly fluorescent on a good day.

It wasn’t until she was sitting on the toilet that her night began to come back to her in flashes. She couldn’t remember everything, but what she did made her slap her palm to her face and slowly drag it down. As soon as she was finished, she washed her hands and raced back to her bedroom, eager to get her laptop up and running.

Liam knew herself enough to admit that she was overzealous at best, and tended to approach something new as just another thing that she could become perfect at with enough practice. She hadn’t expected to scroll through the outbox in her brand new dating site account and see that her drunk self had taken to practicing and perfecting her flirting skills on _over fifteen people_.

She was thankful that there weren’t too many spelling mistakes (or at least not more than she would have made when sober), but she was less thankful for the rambling content. Each new message she read brought light to a new level of embarrassment. She was so red in the face that she could have considered moonlighting as a lobster.

She was so close to deleting her profile and wiping her hands clean of it. Andy probably deserved a few choice words about it too, for not stopping her; he was always her worst enabler. Liam's finger was poised on the touchpad, her mouse hovering over the "delete account" button. After all, she had work to do today. There was no time for flirting—or damage control, as the case seemed to be.

But just as she was about to click, a small red "NEW!" popped up next to the little envelope icon on her dashboard. Liam couldn't help but check.

_So much for laundry..._

\---

Liam hadn’t anticipated getting quite this involved.

Harry would send pictures of sunsets from her bedroom window, or ask Liam how her day was going, and Liam would share stories about her rowdy group of friends, or send updates on her turtles. In a way, Liam really did feel like she was a part of Harry’s life. But, she had only known Harry for a little over a week.

So why was she in the kitchen with a big grin on her face, clutching her phone and waiting for a notification? She knew she was meant to be helping her dad cook dinner, but there she was, standing in the middle of the room with a whisk she didn't know what she was meant to be using for.

The phone buzzed, and Liam scrambled to unlock the screen, almost dropping it in her haste to see the message.

**not_harry_potter: what do you get when you cross a turtle and a flu shot?**

It was accompanied by a photo of her holding a baby turtle gently in her cupped hands, positively glowing and grinning like it was the highlight of her day. Which, it might've been. Photo messages from Harry certainly tended to be the high points of Liam's days lately. She hadn't gotten up the nerve to send any of her own yet, self-conscious about her Breakup Bob haircut after years of having long, flowing waves; the ones featured in the picture on her profile. Nevertheless, Harry seemed pleased enough just to chat with her.

Liam couldn't figure out why she got this warm feeling in her chest whenever she saw Harry's big green eyes crinkle when she smiled, but it felt really nice all the same. She could picture the way Harry might blow an errant curl from in front of her face, then furrow her eyebrows and pout when the hair floated back down to exactly where it was. The thought alone made her smile.

liambean93: i dunno, what?

**not_harry_potter: a slow poke!! get it???**

"Liam!" She looked up at the sound of her father's voice. He had on a smile, but was rolling his eyes the way she normally did with Andy. He pointed to the whisk in her hand. "Are you going to start on those eggs or do I have to do everything around here?"

"Sorry, Dad. I'm on it." She meandered over to the counter, where eight eggs were sitting in a glass mixing bowl, waiting to become eggy bread batter. The Payne family did a Sunday Roast like no other, but only slightly less famous (and equally delicious) was Geoff's Breakfast for Dinner.

liambean93: that's shell-arious lol

Liam patted herself on the back for that one. She deserved it.

**not_harry_potter: omg, shut up!! shellarious!! that's great.**

**not_harry_potter: if you keep that up it's gonna be really hard not to fall in love with you haha**

"Sweetie, are you going to beat those eggs, or just drop your phone in the bowl and hope the yolks break?" Her father wasn't far off; Liam had nearly dropped her phone when she read Harry's latest message.

She was no stranger to saying "I love you" to her friends. She didn't really have room to be skittish about it, being friends with people like Niall who said it so easily, and so often. Harry had become something like a good friend in these past several days. Why was this any different?

Liam wasn’t going to make it weird. She wasn’t. Just because they met on a dating site didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends. Liam just had to remind herself that Emily was in the past, no matter how much she’d thought about that day in sixth form ever since she and Andy had gotten pissed. She was going to act totally and completely normal.

liambean93: haha

liambean93: yeah

liambean93: ☺

 _Perfect. Totally normal,_ she thought.

“Liam, seriously. It’s okay if you’re busy,” her dad intoned with a patient lilt. “But, if you’re going to help, I need you to focus.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Liam shoved her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and shook her head to get her mind off Harry. She had bigger fish (well, eggy bread) to fry.

\---

When Niall had invited Liam over for a sleepover, she had hoped some time with her friend might actually give her a respite from the constant whirr of her thoughts.

Liam loved going to Zayn’s for his mum’s biryani, or to Louis’ to take the younger girls to the playground, but Niall’s house always held the comfort of a second home for her. Maura was an absolute delight whenever Liam came round, always asking how she was and offering food for Liam to take home. And, as much as she enjoyed the company of her other friends’ sisters, there was nothing quite like having a girl friend her own age.

Niall was licking cheese dust off her fingers so she didn’t get any oils on her guitar strings, and Liam was sat on Niall’s bed, pressing her bum into the mattress to muffle the persistent buzzing of her phone.

As much as Liam admired Niall’s fierce love for the people around her, her favourite part was how laid back everything could be when they were together. The two of them could usually sit in silence—except for the sounds of tuning and the occasional strum—and Liam usually felt no need to fill it.

Unfortunately, tonight Liam couldn’t stop fidgeting. The energy pulsing through her was making her hands shake. She was so eager to check her phone, but she couldn’t let herself. She had to pull away. Friends didn’t answer their friends’ messages immediately…right?

Liam found herself forgetting basically every rule of friendship etiquette now that she was trying to set defined boundaries for herself, and it was frustrating. Friendship was supposed to be easier than this. It had been easier than this, before what happened while she and her dad were cooking last week. She didn’t know what had changed.

Her train of thought was interrupted by yet another buzz vibrating against her bum, making her jump. _Right,_ she thought as she reached up to feel the heat collect in her pinking cheeks. These pesky feelings of hers had gotten in the way and ruined it.

This particular night, despite how great Niall Nights usually go, was absolute torture. She had to do something.

Liam got off the bed and sank to the ground, lying on her stomach. Her shirt had ridden up, and she could feel the light scratch of the grey, low-pile carpet beneath her. Settling her hands next to her chest came naturally to her in this position. So, she did what she knew best: push-ups. She pressed the weight of her body upwards, her core shaking, telling her that it had been a while. 

She had worked her way up to just short of fifty push-ups when Niall broke the silence. 

“What’s made you so anxious?”

“Who says I’m anxious?” Liam replied, letting out a grunt of effort from holding herself up in a low plank.

“Li. Please.” Liam looked up to see Niall, still cradling the guitar in one hand. The other made a sweeping gesture along the length of Liam’s body, while Niall maintained a knowing look in her eyes. Liam held Niall’s gaze for several long seconds before collapsing to the ground and groaning in defeat. “What’s going on?”

“Um, I have this…friend, and she met this girl online? And they’ve been talking every day for two weeks. For like, hours at a time, too.” She took a deep breath, and looked up at Niall again, surprised to find her head cocked to the side and her features soft and open. “So they’re really good friends, right? Only my friend thinks she’s ruining their friendship, and she really doesn’t want to do that.”

“Why does your friend think she’s ruining it?” The sincerity in Niall’s face made Liam feel a little choked up.

“She’s…not sure exactly? She’s having confusing feelings. It’s like, she thinks she could like someone _like_ this girl, but she doesn't like This Girl. I mean, she likes this girl, but she doesn't _like_ this girl. You know?” Liam heaved a sigh, finally sitting up. “And so she’s been trying to give this girl some space today, but she feels like all she wants to do is message her back, and talk for hours.”

“Has this girl told your friend that she doesn’t _like_ her?” Liam slowly shook her head back and forth. She hadn’t thought of that. “And has this girl tried to message your friend today?” Liam nodded.

Niall stroked her chin and tried to look like she was about to say something very profound. 

“Here’s what I think. If your friend is backing off because she thinks this girl doesn’t like her, she should ask the girl how she feels. But, if your friend is backing off because she’s afraid that she might be gay, or something like that, you should tell your friend that it’s okay to like a girl. It doesn’t even make you gay, if you don’t want that label. It just means you like a girl.

“And I would hate for your friend to miss out on this girl because she’s twiddling her thumbs waiting for someone _like_ her to come along.”

When she and Niall had started talking, there was a big knot in Liam’s stomach. Now, Niall just smiled at her and went back to playing her guitar as if nothing had changed.

And maybe, fundamentally, nothing had.

She broke out in a big grin. 

“Thanks, Ni. I’ll be sure to tell her that.”

\---

Liam hadn’t anticipated being stuck in the Vans store for an hour.

But--knowing that Louis was the one to drag her to the mall for their blowout sale--she really should have. After spending more than half that time poring over the differences between three pairs of the exact same black sneaker (though Louis insisted they were different, based on the heel height, or the tongue length, or something equally stupid), Liam decided she was done. So, she called out on Louis’ deaf ears that she was headed to La Senza, and walked out.

She wasn’t sure what made her decided to go to the one lingerie store the shopping centre had, or at least she wasn’t readily admitting that she knew exactly why.

However, upon entering the store, it occurred to Liam that she hadn’t been proper bra shopping in what felt like _years_. She’d gotten by mostly wearing sports bras, and taking extra care to hand wash and air dry the plain, beige bra she did own. Still, it was getting a bit pilled and ratty, and could do with a replacement.

Liam walked around in the store, a little dazed by all the choices: pink and white cotton ones that looked positively confectionary, black laces ones with red ribbon trim and padding, and everything in between. Almost every bra had matching knickers, and there were an assortment of cheeky printed pants and ruffled silk thongs on a display in the center of the store.

The walls were filled with bras, organized by type, then color, then size. Liam wasn’t looking for anything special, just a new neutral bra to wear into the ground, so she gravitated toward beige and started looking for what she _thought_ was her size. Best guess, anyway.

Just as she was reaching for a bra with fancy adjustable straps, Liam felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Can I help you find anything today?” The person asked. It was a voice that managed to sound genuinely sweet, rather than the saccharine tone of most retail employees. Still, it startled Liam, to the point where she almost dropped all the other bras and knocked over the wall display. It was embarrassing.

Her surprise at being touched was nothing, however, compared to the shock she felt shoot through her heart when she turned around, only to find herself face-to-face with a massive head of curls that belonged, undeniably, to Harry. She was wearing a cream dress with a mustard-yellow trim on the collar, and a deep blue cardigan with the sleeves pushed up. She was every bit as stunning as her pictures had lead Liam to believe. Possibly even more stunning.

Liam would have liked to take a closer look, as soon as her breath returned to normal and her heart returned from its vacation in her throat.

She tried to mumble that she was fine and turn back around to reach for the bra but Harry persisted. 

“We're having a special today, buy one get one free if you have a bra fitting. May I ask you when you were last fitted for a bra?”

Liam reluctantly looked up, and met Harry’s eyes, which were so green they belonged in a literal forest. She saw no hint of recognition of who Liam was, and Liam mentally thanked her hairdresser for the drastic cut. Liam was safe to ogle for now.

“Um…puberty?”

“Seriously?” Harry’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. 

Liam nodded, a blush filling out her cheeks as she tucked some hair behind her ear. 

“I’d be happy to help you! Come this way.” Harry reached for her hand, and for some reason Liam’s first instinct was to intertwine their fingers. Liam wanted to crawl in a hole, except for the part where Harry accepted the gesture and practically dragged Liam toward the fitting rooms.

Harry started speaking as she pulled the key from her cardigan pocket and unlocked the door, her voice enthusiastic despite being on the slower side.

“Okay, so I know strangers seeing you in a bra, and also kind of out of the bra, briefly, is a little bit weird for everyone. But have you ever seen that show Say Yes to the Dress?” Liam nodded, her mind stuck for a moment on the fact that Harry would be seeing her in a bra. Suddenly her mouth felt very dry. “I like to think of this as very personal, and geared uniquely toward you, just like the fittings at Kleinfeld’s. Only, it’s more like, Say Yes to Your Breasts.”

Liam couldn’t stop herself from smiling when she heard Harry’s pun, and her smile grew when she saw it mirrored on Harry’s face. 

“Has anyone laughed at that joke before?”

“No, but I remain optimistic,” she quipped with a laugh.

It struck Liam, then, how easy it was to interact with Harry, how natural it felt between them. Liam had almost forgotten to be nervous. That was until she remembered that her shirt was coming off, and sooner rather than later. The way Harry couldn’t stop messing with her hair—scrunching up the curls, or teasing them with her fingers—put Liam a bit more at ease. She was just so…cute.

 _Okay, that didn’t feel weird to think,_ Liam considered, while Harry looked on patiently, as if she was ready to wait all day for Liam to feel comfortable enough to strip. Liam’s tummy did a funny swooping thing at the notion. Slowly, very slowly, and with a deep breath, Liam reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it off. Her arms instinctively went to cover her soft tummy, but Harry reached out and gently pulled Liam’s arms down by her sides.

Harry had this light in her eyes when Liam looked up, and she had to tell herself this particular light had nothing to do with her shirtlessness. Even if it did, she was already too close to fainting for comfort. 

Quiet and slow, like Liam was a spooked animal, Harry brought the measuring tape up under the band of Liam’s bra. Liam had to make a conscious effort not to suck in. 

Harry’s tongue peeked out sideways from between her lips while she made sure the tape was pulled to the proper tightness, and murmured, “‘S this okay?” Liam swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded.

“Okay, you’re a 38. Wait here; I’m going to grab a few testers for you.” Harry crumpled up the measuring tape and stuffed it back in her pocket. She double-checked that she had her key, and headed to the dressing room door. “I’ll be back in in a few minutes.”

Liam was looking in the mirror, and even though she was alone, her immediate instinct was to bring her arms back up to her tummy. She couldn’t help but remember the look in Harry’s eyes when she’d brought Liam’s arms down. Not only like she wasn’t fazed by the little extra fat that rested in Liam’s midsection, but that she was something close to enamoured. Liam couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at her stomach like it was something that could be loved.

She imagined Harry’s fingers roaming up her sides, following along the curves and bumps, tracing the light beige stretch marks. Making her way up the pale, soft skin, teasing to make Liam’s breath catch. She nearly let out a quiet moan at the thought of Harry’s gentle hands cupping her breasts, toying with her nipples through the fabric of the bra.

Liam would need a bra that wouldn’t lose its shape when Harry pulled down at the cups to mouth at her nipples, kissing tenderly between her breasts as she made her way from one to the other. The cool air on her chest after the warmth of Harry’s mouth would make her nipples peak, make them easier for Harry’s nimble fingers to play with.

The heat building inside Liam was familiar, but she had never felt it quite this strongly. She imagined Harry kissing her way down Liam’s stomach, leaving little bites here and there, until she reached the pair of matching knickers that Liam was now determined to own. Harry would toy with the hem of them, brushing her fingers against the curls underneath then pulling them out to run them across the line where Liam’s belly curved in toward her pelvis.

Liam was, in the moment, startled by the mental image of Harry going down on her. What startled her more was how content she felt about it the more the thoughts lingered. It was easy for her to picture a situation like that, how Harry might react, and what she might do. Her mind was focused on Harry kissing her lips through the dampened cotton still covering Liam, so the series of quick knocks was enough to jolt Liam out of her reverie and tell Harry to come in.

She was absolutely beaming. 

“I really think you’re going to like these. It’s amazing what a difference it makes to have a bra that fits you properly. I’m so excited for you to try them!” Harry hung the bras on the hooks near the mirror and went to sit down on the footstool in the corner of the dressing room, a dimple popping in her cheek as her smile widened.

Liam wondered if anyone had ever reported it a strictly biological impossibility to be sad when Harry was smiling. She was feeling the effects of this herself at the moment, and would love to see it backed by science and not just the tingling in her chest. Liam picked up the first bra, taking it off the hanger. She was a little incredulous when she saw the size of the cups. Surely, those were too big? But, in spite of her instinct, she trusted Harry.

She reached behind her back and began to unclip her bra, sliding the straps off her shoulders and for a moment exposing the Actual Real Life Harry to her completely naked back. Liam looked down, and to no one’s surprise her nipples really were hard from her earlier fantasy. She slipped the new bra on, her body relishing the feeling of the new fabric. After she pulled each breast up into the cup and let it settle back in, she turned around to show it off. 

“What do you think?”

“I mean, I think you look amazing, but I’m biased; I picked the bra out. And besides, it’s really much more important what _you_ think. Don’tcha think?” Harry stood up and turned Liam around by the shoulders, positioning her right in front of the mirror. “How does it _feel_?”

Liam said, “Amazing,” but she didn’t know how much she was talking about the bra and how much she was talking about Harry’s hands still resting on her mostly bare shoulders. She looked closer; the bra did feel phenomenal, and she had to admit that Harry was right. It fit her perfectly. “I love it.”

“I’m so glad. I’ll leave you to the other ones now that you know your size, and when you’re ready you can find me and I’ll check you out.” Harry winked as she left the dressing room.

Harry was already there when Liam approached the register, just about finished ringing up someone else and putting their purchases into branded bags. Harry threw up a hand and waved the person out, wishing them a nice day, and then turned to look at Liam. 

“So, how’d we make out?” Harry asked.

Liam’s eyebrows nearly touched her hairline with how high they rose, but then she realised Harry was talking about her bra success, and she was hearing what she wanted to hear. 

“Great, actually. I had a really nice time.” _That sounds like something you’d say at the end of a date, idiot,_ Liam thought, wanting to hit herself for that comment.

“Me too.” In spite of Liam’s awkwardness, Harry grinned again, ringing up the two bras and slowly transitioning into a smirk when she saw the matching knickers. “Okay, since you had the fitting, your bras were eligible promotion. So, your total is £45.70.” 

Liam handed Harry her credit card, and Harry’s mouth dropped into an ‘o’ of shock. 

“Liam? Liam. I _knew_ you looked familiar! Why didn’t you say anything?”

Liam cleared her throat as Harry dipped her card into the chip reader. 

“Well, you didn’t really give me a chance to get a word in at first, and then I was really embarrassed and didn’t think I could say, ‘Hey, Harry, it’s Liam, look at me topless!’ Plus, you’re kind of intimidatingly pretty.”

“Oh, please. You’re totally gorgeous. And I love your hair short like that!”

This was Liam’s chance. 

“It was great meeting you, Harry. Even under weird circumstances.” _Do you want to go for coffee? I really think I like you maybe a lot? C’mon, say something!_ She leaned in and kissed Harry’s cheek, leaving behind the sheen from her Burt’s Bees. “Hopefully I’ll see you around?”

\---

Just as she was walking back to meet Louis at Vans, kicking herself for not being more forward, Liam’s phone buzzed in her pocket.

**not_harry_potter: i’d like to see you again sometime before fate intervenes. do you maybe want to go to the botanical gardens this week?**

liambean93: oh my god, thank you for saying something. i was worried i missed my chance!!

liambean93: yes, i’d love to.

Louis was waiting for her outside the store on a bench, dicking around on his phone. A bag that looked like it could carry at least three shoeboxes rested against his calf. When Liam got close enough for Louis to see her shoes in his periphery, he looked up at her. 

“What’s got you looking so chuffed, Leemo?”

“Nothing,” she said. She couldn’t keep her smile in check. “Just this girl.”


End file.
